Miss Ford began to laugh, a ladylike yet nasty laugh.  “You amuse me,” she said, but not in the kind of way that would make anybody wish to amuse her often.

Miss Ford was the ideal member of committee, and a committee, of course, exists for the purpose of damping enthusiasms.

The Stranger’s manners were somehow hectic.  Directly she heard that laughter the tears came into her eyes.  “Didn’t you like what I was saying?” she asked.  Tears climbed down her cheekbones.

“Oh!” said Miss Ford.  “You seem to be—­if not drunk—­suffering from some form of hysteria.”

“Do you think youth is a form of hysteria?” asked the Stranger.  “Or hunger?  Or magic?  Or—­”

“Oh, don’t recite any more lists, for the Dear Sake!” implored Miss Ford, who had caught this rather pretty expression where she caught her laugh and most of her thoughts—­from contemporary fiction.  She had a lot of friends in the writing trade.  She knew artists too, and an actress, and a lot of people who talked.  She very nearly did something clever herself.  She continued:  “I wish you could see yourself, trying to be uplifting between the munches of a stolen bun.  You’d laugh too.  But perhaps you never laugh,” she added, straightening her lips.

“How d’you mean—­laugh?” asked the Stranger.  “I didn’t know that noise was called laughing.  I thought you were just saying ‘Ha—­ha.’”

At this moment the Mayor came in.  As I told you, he was a grocer, and the Chairman of the committee.  He was a bad Chairman, but a good grocer.  Grocers generally wear white in the execution of their duty, and this fancy, I think, reflects their pureness of heart.  They spend their days among soft substances most beautiful to touch; and sometimes they sell honest-smelling soaps; and sometimes they chop cheeses, and thus reach the glory of the butcher’s calling, without its painfulness.  Also they handle shining tins, marvellously illustrated.

Mayors and grocers were of course nothing to Miss Ford, but Chairmen were very important.  She nodded curtly to the Mayor and grocer, but she pushed the seventh chair towards the Chairman.

“May I just finish with this applicant?” she asked in her thin inclusive committee voice, and then added in the direction of the Stranger:  “It’s no use talking nonsense.  We all see through you, you cannot deceive a committee.  But to a certain extent we believe your story, and are willing, if the case proves satisfactory, to give you a helping hand.  I will take down a few particulars.  First your name?”

“M—­m,” mused the Stranger.  “Let me see, you didn’t like Hazeline Snow much, did you?  What d’you think of Thelma ...  Thelma Bennett Watkins?...  You know, the Rutlandshire Watkinses, the younger branch——­”

Miss Ford balanced her pen helplessly.  “But that isn’t your real name.”

“How d’you mean—­real name?” asked the Stranger anxiously.  “Won’t that do?  What about Iris ...  Hyde?...  You see, the truth is, I was never actually christened ...  I was born a conscientious objector, and also——­”